As the people of Venezuela and the international community already knows, in the early hours of the morning, exactly at 1:58 a.m. the government of the United States incurred in unprecedented military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This is a terrible stain on the development of bilateral relations. The military operation lead to the capture of president Nicolás Maduro, and the first lady, first combatant, Cilia Flor. We had already warned the public that an aggressive act was taking place under the false excuses, that the mask is off, and that this act had only one objective: regime change in Venezuela, and the capture of our energy resources, our mineral resources, and our natural resources. This is the true objective; the world and the international community must know this for what it is. We have assembled this National Defense Council with the participation of the public powers of the Venezuelan state. We are joined by the president of the legislature of Venezuela: Dr. Jorge Rodríguez. The president of the judiciary: Dr. Karilia Beatriz. The president of the moral power, the general attorney: Kare William Sahá, the Minister of Defense, the VP of Public Safety, the Council of Vicepresidents, and the Chancellor of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as some other special guests that we have invited to this National Defense Council.
From this Council we demand the liberation of the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flor. Nicolas Maduro is the only president of Venezuela. The Here we are: the high command of the state of Venezuela, the high command of the military, the high command of the council of vicepresidents, all of the representatives of the political, national power of Venezuela, but we see the people in the streets of Venezuela mobilizing in response to a call that Nicolas Maduro had already made. He warned us that if something happened to the president Nicolas Maduro, the people should mobilize on the streets. The people who are militants should mobilize. The people in their places of work should mobilize. The Bolivarian national forces should mobilize and be deployed all over the national territory. The public safety organisms should mobilize. All of the national power of Venezuela should mobilize to ratify our inheritance: as sons and daughters of Simón Bolívar, our sacred obligation of safeguarding our national independence, our sovereignty, our territorial integrity that has been savagely attacked in the early hours of today. The international community has spoken out in solidarity with Venezuela: China, Rusia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. The governments of the world are simply appalled that Venezuela has been a victim of such an attack. An attack that has with no doubt a Zionist tint. It is truly shameful. This is what our father, the liberator, in the Jamaican Letter: “The veil has been torn. We have seen the light, but they want to cast us back into darkness. Our chains have been broken, we have become free, and our enemy pretends to enslave us again.” If there is something clear to the people of Venezuela is that we will never be slaves again, that we will never go back to being a colony of any empire of any kind. I repeat the words of president Nicolás Maduro, words he said two days ago, publicly in a tv interview, in which he ratified the willingness of this government to participate in dialogue, to reach constructive agreements. The response has been this aggression that violates Article 1 and 2 of the UN Charter. President Maduro has reached out his hand to the people of the United States, and has used, like a true chief of state, the channels of diplomatic, political and institutional communication, of a state, of a true state that assumes international relations should serve to benefit the people, that assumes that the purpose of international relations is friendship, cooperation and respect for international law. This is what we Venezuelans believe.
For this reason we call on the Venezuelan people to keep calm so that we may face together, in perfect national unity--that the fusion of police, military and popular forces should become a single body, and that together we should face together the coming, wonderful, stage of defense of our national independence, that we should all together, as a single body, defend our loved Venezuela; the Venezuela that we inherited from the greatest man in history; the Venezuela, that we inherited from Simón Bolívar, Miranda, Urdaneta, Ayacucho, from our heroes, from our heroines, from the martyrs that planted themselves on this sacred land to defend the dignity of a people that do not submit, that do not surrender, and that will never again become a colony owned by anyone, not of old empires, not of new empires, and not of decaying ones. We are commited to liberty.
What is being done to Venezuela is barbaric. This siege, this blockade, is barbaric. It is an affront against the system of international human rights, it constitutes a crime against humanity. No blockade will usurp the will of the people. In 2025, our people demonstrated this will to fight. The workers, the businessmen, the comuneros, the people who work the land, the fishers, all of Venezuela united to guarantee the livelihood of the country, the food, the medicine, and all essential goods. We now call on our people to defend its life. Not a single Venezuelan will be left behind. To the extremists that initiated this armed aggression against our country: history will make you pay. The people of Venezuela have placed you were you belong: in the trash heap of history. The people of Venezuela who have a conscience, the people who have tend to the sacred fire of the fatherland, these people are incensed by the kidnapping of president Nicolas Maduro, and the first lady, first combatant, Cilia Flores. All of Venezuela is to be mobilized, by the decree signed by the president Nicolas Maduro. There is only one president of this country, and his name is Nicolas Maduro. We, the National Defense Council, deliver this decree to the president of the Supreme Court, so that it may be ratified, as is required by the Constitution, in the Constitutional Room. Everything follows from the Constitution. We learned this from Comandante Chávez, who faced vicissitudes, coups, and petrol embargoes. We are ready to defend Venezuela. We are ready to defend our natural resources. Natural resources should be used for the benefit of our nation. Today the people of Venezuela know the implications of having natural and energy resources.
This National Defense Council has been mobilized. We await only its ratification by the Constitutional Room, something that should happen in the next few hours. Everything in the decree, which is signed by president Nicolas Maduro, will be executed from this moment on. To Venezuela, to our people, here is your government. And I repeat again, and again, the words of our president: We are open to respectful relations that follow international law and the laws of the Republic of Venezuela. This are the only types of relations that we will accept. After this military aggression, and the capital that saw the birth of our liberating father, Simón Bolívar, the people of Venezuela as a whole will find a way to solve this conflict calmly and peacefully. Those who must resort to violence, those who have to resort to weaponizing the international legal system, those people are not favored by history. We are on the right side of history, and we have a moral imperative to defend the right to a peaceful, tranquil, existence, the right that Venezuela has to a future, the right to sovereignty of the Venezuelan people. We ride with our father, the liberator. We ride with him to liberate the Great Homeland. And we call on the countries of the Great Homeland, be aware, what was done to Venezuela can be done to you. What was done to Venezuela, the use of force to usurp the will of the people, can be done to you. Today it happened to Bolivar’s people. Rest assured that the people of Venezuela, who are wise, who are patient, who are strategic, will find the way to defend their homeland.
Thank you.